Year One!

Balanced Reporting

            As the year comes to a close it is important to offer some balanced news. After being overseas for over a week, I can agree with President Trump on America’s news coverage. Yes, he is correct in suggesting that it is not good.  Balanced news in America no longer exists.  Networks either criticize or praise the president, and spend a great deal of time speculating on what he will do next.  So to put it politely, the Fox, CNN, and NBC affiliates are engaging in possibilities not actions.  News should be facts, not alternative facts or ideas.

The world, in response, has had to develop its own viewpoint of the United States, its people and our nation’s 45th president. Trump, the man and the Trump presidency, is virtually the sole conversation on America’s major networks.  The rest of the world is invisible under the president’s glowing haze. “America First,” has really meant “America only!” 

To an international audience, President Trump has transformed himself into a multi-channel daily reality show.  He is the only star in the world’s first universal soap opera, and it has mandatory viewing. Everyone wonders, “What will Trump do next?” And of course, only Trump knows!

All joking aside, despite the criticism and accolades, President Trump has had a busy year. And he is still learning the extent of his influence and power.  He has not backed down from a fight with fellow American or international leaders. His brashness is making some cheer and others shiver in fright!

Historians will have differing views on his efforts, but in a short time his presidency has changed the nation and to some extent the entire world.  And, a great deal of the change has not been conducted through legislation or traditional policy.  Largely through executive orders, he has rolled back or ended many of the hallmarks of the Obama presidency.  He has removed regulations that stifled businesses but protected consumers.  President Trump has challenged treaties, including the Paris Climate Accords.  He has moved forward in contesting immigration, both legal and illegal migrants and has devastated the “Dreamers.”  His travel bans, though facing continual court scrutiny, are simply being revised.  Overall, they are still in place. 

America has slowly turned its back on NATO and the United Nations by demanding our global partners pay more of their share in these bodies.  His involvement in Syria, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, disagreements with Iran, and hostile banter with North Korea has upset traditional politicians and made peace seem less certain.  Yet, he has earned their praise in his strategies on the war on terror in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.  Regarding Russia, which is a daily sore spot, President Trump and his allies continue to spin what should be a national tragedy into a dispute on the effectiveness of the nation’s security and intelligence agencies.

Trump is also changing the nature of the federal government.  Cabinet positions were doled out to billionaires and "interested parties," which instantly weakened their effectiveness and legitimacy.  The failure to fill positions in government agencies is widely criticized but in essence it is also shrinking the size of the government.  And the Tax Reform Act, proposed to rid us of H &R Block and simplify the tax code, did pass and was signed by the president before Christmas.  And, if the president is correct, the harmful aspects of the bill will be ignored as long as Middle Americans see more money in their paychecks.

The successful selection and nomination of Judge Gorsuch to the Supreme Court highlights how the Trump presidency will change the judiciary.  President Trump has also appointed more judges to federal courts in his first year than any president in history.  Many of the appointments are not legal scholars, but young lawyers that favor the president’s views.  It is not clear how these positions will affect future judicial decisions, but these judges will more likely be in office for many decades.

Finally, by maintaining a constant presence in social media, he has continued to use social issues to set the tone for the nation’s culture wars.  In doing so he has made class, gender, ethnicity, race, and racial relations a visible aspect of his presidency.

There has been a great deal of vocal and political resistance to President Trump’s actions.  For weeks, the opposition was marching in countless cities.  This outrage has continued but is now taking different forms.  Counter-protesting has also emerged rendering traditional media coverage of presidential actions obsolete. Polling is no longer valid as pollsters cannot gauge audiences that represent the entire nation. All that is really known is that on every imaginable topic, the president has fierce supporters and equally harsh critics.

President Trump has re-established the idea of an imperial president. He has maximized singular power, often dis-regarding constitutional checks and balances.  Yes, President Trump has acted like a king and has frequently suggested that he is above the law, but the Republican controlled Congress has not challenged his authority.

So, what initially appeared to be a terrible first year has concluded with some achievements.  Yet, this presidency will be judged on perception instead of reality.  It is and remains highly controversial, and the president is not going to be regarded as popular on any level. 

None-the-less, President Trump is slowly moving towards physically or philosophically fulfilling all of his campaign promises.  While the Middle American, those complaining of being neglected and disenfranchised and are the most visible part of his base, has not been the major beneficiary of his political actions, the wealthier classes, the less visible and least acknowledged sectors of his base have been greatly rewarded through his decisions.  It is slowly turning into a contest between the haves and the have-nots, with Americans picking sides on ideological grounds rather than actual specific categories.

Judging Mr. Trump is very tricky and sometimes difficult.  However, as time progresses, evaluating President Trump may eventually resemble how the common man saw the Eisenhower presidency.  Some remember him playing golf and doing nothing and others remembered a strong leader transforming the nation into a superpower. 

            Time will tell, but it the truth won’t be on cable news!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Can We Talk About The Statues?

Another Historical Conversation Can We Really Talk About The Statues? The creation of the Confederate States of America is one of the unique chapters in the history of the United States. Formed in 1861 and concluded in 1865, this entity operated as a separate nation with its own governmental structure during the entirety of the Civil War. What is so important about the CSA is that it was a reflection of what Southerners believed failed in the United States. In essence it was the creation of a “more perfect” union that endorsed slavery and racial inequality.             Once the war efforts started to decline and it was apparent that the CSA was not going to succeed, divisions of the Confederate Army surrendered and Union troops hunted down and captured members of the CSA government including its president and vice president.   By December 1865, all vestiges of the CSA were defeated.      ...
Read more

A Really Big Lie

   Last weekend thousands of Russians were in the streets protesting. They did so in spite of extreme cold and a strong police presence. The protests took place in numerous cities and the protesters realized that their lives were in danger for challenging the authority of President Putin's government. Contrast that scene with recent protests in the United States. Americans are never afraid for their safety for their right to protest is protected by the Constitution. While the Russians knew they were protesting in support of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny and for democracy, often American protesters cannot fully articulate the issues for their anger or frustration. The January Washington protests are a case in point. Thousands of people came to Washington, D.C. for a rally and then afterwards were encouraged by the president to march to the Capitol. After gathering there, protesters decided to storm the building. However, why did they do this? What did they expect to achieve...
Read more

Why Not A Latina Justice?

The “E” Word Commenting on the announcement of Justice Souter’s retirement from the US Supreme Court, President Obama stated the one of the qualities he wanted in a nominee for the Supreme Court was empathy. This statement has caused much concern and shock among the news media and the Washington political and policy establishment. These entities collectively are struggling with concept that a President would use empathy as criteria for a Supreme Court Justice. Various commentators criticized the President for this criterion. Why empathy is such an important criteria? How did the President come up with such a crazy idea? The people who are struggling with this concept are looking and listening in the wrong places. They are forgetting or ignoring a key fact. The President and his wife are African-American lawyers. In the African-American and minority legal and political circles, subject of judicial empathy has been discussed continuously for at least nineteen years. African-Ame...
Read more